Monday, April 2, 2012

Many a time, when one enters a discussion with someone who opposes unschooling, or when you read a critique about life learning, the opposition takes up the queste of “The Things You Have to Know”. Because, they argue, formal schooling will need you all these things you cannot go through life without, which you wouldn’t learn if you were solely guided by interest.
They’ll offer a list of things like national anthems, historic facts, the complete work of this or that author, trigonometry... Writing them all in capitals and making them seem like Universal Knowledge You Cannot Live Without.

Let me tell you something about Universal Knowledge. It is true that there are things in life that one must know in order to survive. I guess we can call them universal knowledge. Things like fire is hot and rain is wet, if you stand in the cold barely clothed, you’ll get sick... but these are all things a child acquires long before he enters school and are not taught. The child learns these by experience (believe me, there are many children who have to experience the cold/barely dressed/sick cycle before they will believe it). Everything a child learns as he steps over the threshold of The Irreplaceable Institution That Is School is trivial and negotiable. It is also all very dependent on the specific institution the child will be attending, the teacher and the country in which the child is born.
Surely, there are some things all schools try to teach their pupils that are part of this Universal Knowledge, like colors and shapes, but these are things a child either already had a notion of, or would learn on his own when decently surrounded.

All the things these opposers call Necessary for survival, or for obtaining some sort of status in society or being a credible person - or whatever the reason they think you need that specific figment of knowledge for - are extremely fluid. Each discussion partner will give you a different list (which already points you to the fact that they are not so Universal or Indispensable after all).

National anthems are just that - national - and I can show you an entire nation where hardly anyone knows the national anthem, that nation is my own, that of the Belgians. The last time we had a prime minister, he even started singing another country’s anthem. Patriotism isn’t an Indispensable part of character, we all live well without it and aren’t lesser humans or ignorant wits without it.

History again, is highly dependent on where you are. Indeed, history is in the eye of the beholder. (The same goes for Geography, another topic that is often described as Knowledge You Cannot live without) There are a great many things I know about history, but they are probably incomparable with what someone from another country knows about history - and often even the things we claim to know are deeply flawed and shaped by Eurocentrism or Western Imperialism (think about the discovery of the world - for instance). So is anyone who comes from another part of the world and knows another part of history well a nitwit? Or are they excused because they have a different nationality? What then with expats and travelers?

Knowledge of this or that author is another concept that is highly dependent of culture. And whenever this topic is raised, I can’t but think of an anecdote a friend of mine told when returning from a year of schooling abroad in the States: one of the students asked her (a Belgian girl) if we too have famous authors like they have Shakespeare. Notably, the US formal school system isn’t that great at teaching children about this or that author either (nor are they about geography as another student asked her if Belgium was the capital of Brussels).

Now I am a big fan of knowledge and I find it neat to ‘know things’, but I have met many a person who went through university flawlessly who didn’t know what an antilope is or who thinks “Je te Flouff” is French for I love you. They are highly functioning, respected citizens now.

Aside from the very rudimentary, there is no Basic Knowledge All Must Know, so why not fill your head with things you actually need and things you are actually interested in, no matter if anyone thinks you are just a nitwit. Simply because of our different interests, there will always be someone who thinks your knowledge is less than theirs, mostly because they don’t understand or don’t care about what you’re interested in.

Unschooling Question: What About the Things You Have to Know?

11 comments:

My oldest is five (five!) and I've already encountered this. I want my children to love learning. Of course I expect them to be able to read and do basic math and have other rudimentary knowledge to survive in society. I also think history, geography, science, writing, art, etc. ARE very important, but the specifics of what they might take interest in are not as critical. One of the huge issues I have with "school" is the checklist mentality of knowing this that or the other. Love this post. Have you read Demand Euphoria's blog? She has a few posts addressing this issue. They are some of my favorites.

I think some of it is just exposure, too. For example, I like to take the kids to museums, so they're being exposed to history and science and art. They're exposed to fractions in cooking. I think sometimes people don't realize how much kids are exposed to, without having a set curriculum.

When my children were still pre-school age and we began to think about their education, my Partner and I (both elementary school teachers) both came to the conclusion that neither of us had ever taught anything in school that was even remotely relevant to the values, goals and experiences that we hoped our children would grow up with. Knowing that, the choice to Unschool was the natural next step. I love bringing this 'enlightenment' to other parents who are on the fence about school vs. no school.

Brilliant post! I often find, that after explaining what you are doing to those who have pronounced unschooling as something that *simply cannot work* they start telling me all these stories about how they hated school, how they never learned everything etc etc. Who is to decide what is "the right thing" to learn? Our children (all five, from 14-6 months!) are avid learners, as all children are when left alone to explore and enjoy life.

As an expat living amongst the in-laws, I often get the feeling they think I'm ignorant/stupid because I don't "know" the same things they take for granted. They forget that someone who has lived most of life in another culture/country has a different collection of knowledge, even if it is useless in their eyes.

Interesting remark! We are expats too, and we spend way too much time at our respective parents, it's chocking how much knowledge we can't even share with them because they don't accept it, based on what they think they know

I've always wondered why there were all these things I "needed" to know in school. I've never used the Old English I had to memorize and recite from the beginning of the Canterbury Tales. Also, cliff notes got me through the book just fine.... and I've never used that information since.

I can relate to that student's question about Belgium's Shakespeare. So who are some of the great authors of Belgium? And what are they known for? Thanks! And did they write in Flemish? Also, is Flouff Flemish for "love"? thanks

Kelly, Shakespeare is English. Yes, Flemish Belgian authors do write in Flemish. Modern writers that are quite famous are Jef Geeraerts and Pieter Aspe, both crime writers, older 'famous' writers are Louis Paul Boon, Ernest Claes, Hugo Claus, Hendrik Conscience, Guido Gezelle and many more. Flemish language text are quite new, as Belgian has long been dominated by the French speaking aristocracy.flouff is not Dutch... It's an invented word. I love you in Flemish is "Ik zie je graag"